Q&A with LOYAL3 CEO

Barry: We provide easy and affordable access for everyone to invest in the brands they love, fee-free.

And that includes IPOs at the same price as Wall Street. It’s pretty cool, people can invest as little as $100 in IPOs, and receive the same enrollment priority as those investing $10,000

M: Loyalty is clearly a part of your story. Can you explain its role?

B: Bain & Company did a landmark study around direct ownership and loyalty. They found that customers who are also shareholders spend 54% more, refer 2x more and visit 68% more often. Our platform makes it easy and low-cost for companies to scale individual ownership.

M: What does the “3” in LOYAL3 stand for?

B: The “3” represents the company, its shareholders and its customers – the unprecedented value creation when those three get aligned. Our role is connecting brands with people who care about them through easy and affordable stock ownership.

M: Why do some companies select LOYAL3 to be a co-manager for their IPOs?

B: To increase engagement, branding and loyalty. What CEO doesn’t want to say to his or her employees, customers and partners “you matter to us – we wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you; and as a way to say ‘thank you,’ we are offering you access to our IPO stock at the same price as Wall Street.” It is very powerful.

M: For some time, individuals could purchase stock directly from some companies commission fee. LOYAL3 made it easier and expanded access to IPO’s, right?

A: Exactly. We see ourselves playing a big part in the story of financial inclusion. We want to provide access to IPOs for everyone. That is an audacious goal. Less than half of U.S. families hold stock and even less have access to IPOs. We’d like to change that. We provide IPO access on a first-come, first-served basis, with three key features (1) minimums as low as $100; (2) an incredibly easy user experience; (3) no investor fees.

M: What are some of the results achieved by LOYAL3?

B: We’re a data-driven company, so I’ll share some metric-driven insights. First, we measure Net Promoter Score (NPS), a proxy for loyalty, for clients. In every case, NPS increases after a person buys stock, in aggregate an average increase of 20 points. This is remarkable.

Even companies whose stock decreased from issuance price experienced an increase in NPS. And companies who started with a negative NPS still saw a rise in NPS with ownership. Those are profound data sets. It supports the thesis that ownership creates loyalty – and the increased loyalty is causal, not just correlation.

Another interesting outcome is that our platform investors have proven not to “flip” IPO shares. To the contrary, 97% hold their IPO shares at end of the first trading day.

M: What were some of key lessons learned in building the company?

B: I was employee number three, so I’ve been here from the beginning. One of the big challenges in this industry, as a startup, is regulation. We worked for three and a half years directly with the SEC to obviate the barriers to making IPOs and follow-on offerings available at scale. It took a lot of work and capital to successfully collaborate, including making business model adjustments and re-coding broad parts of our platform.

We’re proud of our working relationship with the SEC

A key lesson learned is that it is much better to clear innovative products and features with regulators prior to execution. We’re proud of our working relationship with the SEC, and feel we’re the leader in crowdfunding IPOs because of those three and a half years of collaboration.

M: What about technology platform? I assume you’re pretty cutting-edge?

B: You know, it’s interesting. We have a very modern technology platform. I know from our SVP of Technology’s conversations with some of the biggest firms on the Street we have the most advanced technologies in the industry. LOYAL3 is a technology company first and foremost.

Built on micro service architecture, our flexible design enables LOYAL3 to deliver new products and services scalable with less effort, materially reducing costs and delivery time. The critical performance advantage is how we deploy a verticalized agile process for maximum flexibility and teamwork that permits us to push out new features and fixes.

M: What about culture? What do you look for when you hire?

B: Culture is very important to us. Look around the office here. It doesn’t look like financial services. It’s a tech company culture and the environment supports that.

Being smart is ante into the game – we expect that. We look for people who believe in our mission and who prioritize our “3 i’s” of integrity, innovation and interdependence.

M: Another topic I obsess over is User Experience (UX). You have a chief creative officer. That’s uncommon on Wall St., in my experience. Can you talk about that?

We aspire to deliver the very best UX, period.

B: Stephen Klein is our Chief Creative Officer, and Andres Davidovits is VP of Product. We obsess over products and user experience, testing everything. It’s hugely important. We work closely with brands. One of our differentiators is taking the complex and making it simple. Take our iOS app: you can buy stock in literally less than 25 seconds.

Digital marketing led by Dan Garzia and his awesome team is crucial. They drive the efficacy of our platform, in a recent IPO we raised $6.2m in 41 minutes and then closed enrollment.

We challenge ourselves to deliver more than the best user experience in financial services; we aspire to deliver the very best UX, period.

M: You’ve partnered with the likes of GoPro, Virgin America, GoDaddy, and Kraft Foods. What were some big moments in getting those brands to work with you?

B: They are all great brands with really great people, so it’s hard to single one out. But I was particularly proud of our team winning a co-manager mandate for the Virgin America IPO, and in the end, distributing 34% of the retail portion of their entire IPO.

And we really enjoyed partnering with GoPro on its successful IPO, working closely with GoPro and its executive team to engage their customers, fans and employees.

What CEO doesn’t want to say to everyone important to his or her company “you matter so much that we’re providing you access to our IPO at the same price as Wall Street?”

That is why LOYAL3 exists.

(Barry Schneider is CEO of LOYAL3. Michael Halloran is the Founder of The FinTech Blog and former executive with Morgan Stanley. This Q&A is an edited version of a conversation at LOYAL3’s headquarters in San Francisco.)